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It is in surrender that you are embracing humility. Knowing yourself truly; good, bad and ugly. Confronting the secret and alone parts of yourself that are still laced with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of being unsuccessful, fear of being unloved, fear of being wrong.

The trouble with expectations is that they hide in plain sight until you trip on them. Freedom from prescription is essential. Examine every corner of your life for the hidden expectations (your own or others) that you are trying to meet. Find them before they trip you. As I think the next half of my life; I don’t want to spend a minute of my energy or spirit in meeting expectations or prescriptions. I want to live in such a way that I am fully alive and engaged with my greatest strengths. Devoting as much as I have into things that matter most for my legacy, not the legacy others would write or choose for me.

To the woman, unfinished but not incomplete. To you who has loved and lost, chased hope and given up only to have no choice but to try again. Who in finding wisdom has come to know loneliness. You have wandered down the dark alleys and enjoyed the danger there. You are more remarkable than anyone knows – precisely because of how much you let them see, when there is still an ocean beneath the surface of the sea.

I can hardly breathe when she’s in the room. I’m overwhelmed with a sense of envy and admiration for this woman. She is phenomenal. She is loved – loved so hard, and by so many. I’m envious of how I imagine she is loved. Most importantly, she has earned the goodwill of those whom I admire where I have not. I am average beside her. I know the truth of my failings. I know the difference between my aspirations and my reality.

I’m close to throwing a tantrum in the face of the Universe. A grown-up one, with big words and everything. I’ve lived here five years looking at that same corner, same tinny house, same Indian store and all of sudden they’ve opened the door. The hopeful audacity of it. That if you try, they will come. If you stay open and welcoming, people will turn around and look after you. If you fight just a little more, ‘No’ might turn to ‘Yes’. It’s easy to turn my cynicism audacious, to make the Bullshit calls loud and clear. It’s harder to choose a hopeful audacity. A plucky bleeding courage that keeps on playing anyway. A hopeful audacity that compells me to put on my unicorn panties, fight hard tomorrow but not against myself.

In any of those circumstances, there is a season where your friend is lost to you, replaced by a creature called ‘Stranger That Knows Your Deep Secrets’. Your secrets, once shared in trust between the two of you are now the shared property of your friend and their lover. You have to re-introduce yourself and hope they are equally as trustworthy. You have to hope that they choose to love you, as you choose to love them.

I imagine in these moments every one I ever loved somehow feels me in their spirit, without touching. That everyone I ever embraced feels me in their blood for a moment and all that is good or bad or wise or true in me hangs like moonlight on stars and in the dust of the Universe, on the breath of the Earth. Somehow in that moment, listening for each other in the great Silence and making a beautiful fingerprint in the world, both compass and constellation to navigate by.

Here’s what you lost at 28 and found at 30 years of age. Here is my pale Scottish skin over strong thighs and proud breasts. Here is an extraordinary, sensitive machine that carries my self, my soul, my sense.

It’s not that the Church doesn’t want me. The Church doesn’t always know what to do with me but the truth is I want more because the Church is not enough for me. I want the world. I’ve been hoping by some miracle, I was still going to get the ego fix I wanted and the Church would chase after me with open arms, claim me as her own.

Hooray! Same-sex marriage is legalised in the United States. Don’t be an idiot in your social media feeds. Here’s a brief list of what Conservatives can start worrying about next and the list of what Liberals should really be fighting for.

Why has sex become so reductionist? Because I think we’ve lost the art of learning when it comes to our sexuality and I also think we’ve lost a connection with the senses that fuel our sensuality and imagination. It’s hard to have one without the other. It’s crucial to develop our sexual tastes and understanding of how we work in this same learning process and to encourage young people and young adults to understand their sexuality in healthy ways. I believe we can do this through embracing and engaging with the broader art of sensuality.